Lady De La Ware did not know that Pocahontas believed Smith dead, and
Pocahontas, not imagining anything else, thought Smith must have written
this letter from Jamestown before he died; and her heart grew warm
thinking how, even dying, he had done what he could for her happiness on
the mere chance of her going to England. The truth of the matter was
that Smith was then at Plymouth, making ready to start on an expedition
to New England; and though he did not expect to see Pocahontas, he
wished England, and first of all England's Queen, to know what they owed
this Indian girl.
It happened not long after that "La Belle Sauvage," as the Londoners
sometimes called Pocahontas, and Rolfe were being entertained at a fair
country seat. An English girl, much of the age of her guest, whose
curiosity about the ways of the Indians was restrained only by her
courtesy, had been showing her through the beautiful old garden. They
had talked of Virginia, and Mistress Alicia coaxed:
"Wilt thou not take me with thee. Lady Rebecca, when thou returnest
thither?
"But see," and she peered through an opening in the high yew hedge,
"yonder cometh Master Rolfe with a party of gentlemen. Oh! one of them
is a brave figure of a man, though he weareth not such fine clothes as
some of the others. By my troth! 'tis Captain John Smith, and of course
he cometh to greet thee. I would I might stay to hear what ye two old
friends have to say to each other."
It seemed to Pocahontas that hours elapsed during the few minutes she
was alone after Mistress Alicia left her, while her husband was guiding
her guests to her through the garden's winding mazes. How could Smith be
alive when she knew that he was dead? Even as she caught in the distance
the sound of his voice, she asked herself if in truth she had ever heard
of his death from anyone but the councillors in Jamestown.
The well-known voice was no longer weak as when she had last heard it
bid her farewell. There they were, the gentlemen all bowing to her but
remaining in the background, while Rolfe came forward with Smith.
"I have brought thee an old friend, Rebecca," he said.
Pocahontas saluted him, but words were impossible.
John Smith afterwards wrote concerning this interview:
"After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured
her face, as not seeming well contented, and in that humor her husband
with divers others, we all left her two or three hours."
Seeing that she preferred to be alone, the men departed to talk over the
affairs of the Virginia Colony since Smith had left Jamestown.
Pocahontas, sitting quietly on a garden bench near the carp pond, went
over in her thought all that had taken place in her own life since then.
Then she saw him coming towards her again, alone, and she stretched out
her hand to him.
"My father," she cried, "dost thou remember the old days in Wingandacoa
when thou earnest first to Werowocomoco and wert my prisoner?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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